BUSINESS WIRE - Oct 2 - Meetic is going to acquire the assets of e-Kontakt, one of the leading Nordic dating site owned by Intodate International AB. The site launched in 2005. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CNBC - Oct 4 - Â­Grouper was founded in 2011 by Michael Waxman. Users go on a blind date with a group of friends. The cost to attend an arranged meeting is $20 per person. The cost covers the first round of drinks and some light snacks.

NPR - Oct 1 - Ashkan Soltani, a digital privacy &^%$#$^, set up a fake account at OkCupid.com to demonstrate how private companies are tracking what people are doing online. OKCupid's questionnaire asks him for a wide range of information, including drug use. While at OKCupid, he launches two softwares Collusion and MITM Proxy. The Collusion program reveals that ~50 companies are tracking Soltani's computer as he visits OKCupid. Some are advertising firms, while others collect information and then sell it to ad firms or industry research companies. MITM Proxy shows information that those companies are receiving from OKCupid. Nothing unusual. Websites commonly allow other companies to monitor what users are doing on their sites but at least one company, Lotame, learned that Soltani uses drugs "often."

CTV NEWS - Oct 3 - Instant Chemistry offers its clients genetic analysis to assigns the client a compatibility score. This score is then used to assess the person's compatibility with other clients. These scores can help determine if two individuals will experience physical attraction when they meet for the first time.

Dating sites make millions each year from running their casually oriented dating traffic to Fling. Email greg@globalpersonalsmedia.com for special treatment_____________________________________________________________________

Online Dating Is Now Legal In Palestine

THE JERUSALEM POST - Oct 2 - The Palestinian council acknowledges Internet dating has become "unavoidable and impossible to prohibit completely." Men and women are allowed to date online, but only for the purpose of marriage. A woman is prohibited to provide excessive detail about herself, showing her photo or even meeting with men without the presence of her family. Daters can't also chat in a soft or submissive tone. All conversation online must be done with the full knowledge of the family and not in a closed room.

AFAQS - Oct 1 - Murugavel Janakiraman, who started the business of online matrimony as a section of his website in 1997. His company, Matrimony.com claims it has 60% of the estimated Rs 30Billion ($480M) online matchmaking market. The company runs 15 matrimonial websites under Bharat Matrimony and ~300 websites under Community Matrimony. The company now has 4K employees. Janakiraman says the company broke even and made a profit in 2009 and the compounded annual growth rate, in the last three years was ~30%. ~90% of its revenue comes from user subscription fee, which ranges from Rs 3,290 to Rs 50,000 ($52 - $800) for three months. It has 2.5M active members. The next big step would be an IPO. Sources say Canaan Partners, which invested $10M in tranches, would get around 10 times of its investment in its exit.

WALL ST. CHEAT SHEET - Sep 30 - Facebook shares have climbed ~80% since July, and reported 53% increase in revenue quarter-over-quarter. During the last quarter, Facebook had 819M monthly active users which represented a 51% increase YOY. One area that can still benefit from Facebookâ€™s surge is online dating. IACâ€™s online dating division generated ~$713M in 2012. A few other popular companies in the online dating scene include MeetMe, Spark Networks and Snap Interactive. Snap's AYI app is currently integrated with ~25M Facebook connected profiles and has been downloaded ~70M times. AYI users can view friends, their information, and learn about them. Someone will be more willing to trust what they see if that person has a friend in common. Currently, the AYI app has 2M monthly average users and 76K active subscribers. Snap Interactive appears well positioned to begin gaining momentum once investors take notice. Although online dating hasnâ€™t been one of the exciting areas for investors over the past couple of years, Snap could change that with its innovative and fresh look at online dating.

TECH CRUNCH - Sep 30 - Zynga has accused BangWithFriends app of infringing on its â€œWith Friendsâ€ line-up. They are both saying theyâ€™ve reached a settlement. It seems like a clear win for Zynga. Bang With Friends is now changing its name to "The Next Bang".

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